↑ Edit : haha, as my online friend Shakti pointed out, it looks like the guy is standing inside the bucket ↑
When I took this series of photographs last week, I had no idea what exactly was going on here. I came upon these people creating a mosaic a week ago Saturday, and took the pictures of the finished work on Friday. I thought the story was simply one of “See artist in the midst of creating, and then experience the finished piece”. But a little research into what this effort was all about has lead me to understand that this is so much more than a pretty work of art on the wall of a local building. I had stumbled upon part of the ‘Central Toronto Community Health Centres’ Mosaic Project’.
The place where the pictures were taken is a downtown community health centre, one of many places in the area that deals with the welfare of the more unfortunate citizens of our city, and the project was a collaborative art project that involved far more people than the four artists I saw working that day. As described here, the piece is the result of input from all who wished to participate and was the culmination of hours of open studio sessions with the more than 150 people who took part in the program.
As a true believer in the ability of the creation of art as a way to help and heal, I was happy to have come upon this photo-op. It was truly a case of being at the right place at the right time, and I’m glad I was able to experience and share this with you. Now when I pass this mosaic, as I will on a regular basis, I will be able to look at it with greater understanding. And one of my personal life mottoes will be brought to mind whenever I pass it, “It is the journey that is the prize”. In this, I am not saying that the piece of art is not a prize in itself, but that the process of creating it was the more important goal.
